[Enigmail] From offlist

[Robert J. Hansen]

David D-- contacted me off-list with a question.  He doesn't want to
post on the list for reasons known only to him.  This is his question,
with his email address and last name stripped, reposted with his permission.

My response will be following separately.

=====

I'm looking to start encrypting my emails, but I'm not sure whether to
use SSL or Gnu Private Guard (through Enigmal with Thunderbird). I'm
definitely not an expert on this, but am I right in understanding that
with SSL (using a server from trustmail or swissmail) you can send an
email to anyone whether they have a key or not, but with Enigmal the
recipient has to have a key for the email to be encrypted? Using SSL is
the email only encrypted up to the server where it is deciphered and
then passed onto the recipient? If this is the case it seems that using
Enigmail is more secure, but how would you send an encrypted email to
someone whose public key is not on any directory?